Nicotine safety

[westy]

^^ thanks Kate I had a look around. Im in Ireland where it always rains but it pours. it does be even raining even in the house!! few people said tesco or similar places might have it? I take it on the food isle with the cooking and baking stuff uhh? us men wouldnt know about those things

 

[Kate]

Sunny ol' Ireland hey, I know what it's like

I've heard of some people finding Super Cook glycerine with the baking ingredients at Tesco. That's probably your best bet at the moment. If you can't find it you could search ebay, that's where I get mine. Make sure it's food grade and not just for cosmetics, it needs to be as pure as possible for inhaling.

 

[TropicalBob]

Or try a health food store. That's where I buy mine.

 

[Kate]

I was looking for information on what medics thought would be a normal maintenance dose of nicotine and found this, they think 35-63mg is high -

"High-dose nicotine replacement therapy for heavy smokers:

"Another NRT option is to give smokers a higher dose based on the amount of nicotine that they have been getting from cigarettes. Sometimes this method has required larger doses of nicotine replacement than have been used before. High-dose NRT with patches has been studied with patients getting from 35 mg to 63 mg of nicotine per day. The research suggests that patients' withdrawal symptoms go away with these higher doses and their cravings improve without harmful effects on the heart and circulation. Patient were carefully watched in these studies to make sure they were doing well and were not becoming ill or having any problems. This is still a new option that should be considered only with a doctor's guidance and supervision. "

ACS :: Guide to Quitting Smoking

 

[Thunderkebabs]

I so agree. When I first started, I haven't worked out the exact amounts of eliquid etc and ended up having lots in my mouth and on my hands and felt quite dizzy but still wanted a ciggi for the hit as i didn't seem to get one from ecigs.
I balanced it out and realized the way it works and that one has to be careful. I also wanted to buy super strong liquid in order to get a hit but refrained from doing so as i slowly started to get a hit even from the low nic level ones.

New users, pls be careful, you don't realize how much nicotine you actually putting into you and making yourself even more addicted by raising the tolerance to nicotine!

Once I got the hit however, I got really bad lung pains which still haven't subsided... so I had to stop completely. Now I try smoking only one reg cig a day and I am ONE GRUMPY F*****!!!!

WHY IS SMOKING SO MUCH FUN AND MAKES YOUR LIFE SO MUCH MORE ENJOYABLE?!?!?!?!?!? GRRRR

Lol, nicotine addicts are junkies, I agree.

I've heard it said that nicotine works faster with smoking, within a few seconds but takes a minute or so when vapourised. How true that is I don't know. That could be something to do with freebase as Bertrand suggests.

Something else at play is the other chemicals in smoke. Vaping doesn't give us chemicals such as harmine so we don't get the same hit. Some of us try to get the hit by increasing our nicotine intake but all that does is increase tolerance.

"... you can become tolerant to nicotine's effects -- you need to use more and more nicotine to reach the same degree of stimulation or relaxation -- and you can see how people would quickly move from smoking one cigarette to a pack a day habit."

There is no satisfactory alternative to smoking for some people, nothing gives the same effect no matter what the nicotine dose. Ask TBob, he still craves cigs but doses himself up with nicotine from snus, stonewalls, a pipe and esmoking.

Where we are in danger, I think, is when we are unaware of the potential of the nicotine we use, there is no doubt in my mind that liquid nicotine is potent and potentially fatal. To try to replicate cig hits by increasing nic dose is not a logical use of the drug but I think some people do that.

This is a different habit and we should be aware of the amount of nicotine we are prepared to dose ourselves with daily. If we raise our dosage when stopping smoking it doesn't mean we are gaining effect, we are just gaining tolerance.

 

[Bellinghamster]

Excellent thread! I have been extremely paranoid about nicotine overdose since I started using eliquid, and I'm glad it's not completely unfounded. Thank you Kate for the calculations at the beginning, that really helps! My other concern regards handling of the eliquid itself; is there a danger of transdermal absorption skewing my nicotine ingestion calculations? If there is a spill I understand to wash it off, but can the rate of absorption be estimated, especially for what might be considered "trivial" contact? I have an NJOY pen style device that "weeps" from the bottom of the atomizer and I fear I'm transferring nicotine to everything I touch after I use it...

 

[Kate]

Welcome to the forum Bellinghamster.

I'm glad you found the thread useful. Sorry I can't give you any information on absorption through skin, that's something I know nothing about yet. Someone else might have an idea. It's very common to get eliquid on skin and rashes can occur.

Some more figures for this thread:

a drop is around 0.05ml
there are approximately 15 - 20 drops in a ml
it takes me five minutes to vape two drops

Vaping two drops of 36mg juice in five minutes is around the equivalent nic intake as a cigarette per minute.

 

[angiicat]

Kate,

My thanks to you for starting this thread. I think the nicotine intake thing has been what I've been most concerned with since taking up e-smoking. I have a 901 and so far have loved it.

However, last night the fibers of the cart got stuck on the steel wool and when I finally got it all free the steel wool came out of my atomizer completely. It's not vaping the same at all since and I find I have to top off my cartridges much more so was getting worried about how much nicotine I was actually taking in. I bought a 10ml bottle from CaSH premium collection and it is the 16mg strength.

Thanks to your calculations I feel a lot better.

be well,
ang.

 

[TropicalBob]

From experience, I'd say not to worry much about accidental transdermal absorption of any dangerous level of e-liquid nicotine. Dr. Loi and I have both kind of used ourselves as guinea pigs for some things, and PM'd about a few. I put a few drops of 24mg liquid on a bandage and attached it to some bare skin to see if it could emulate Big Pharma's transdermal patch. Nope. It just slid all over the place and made a mess. But I didn't even get a rash at the spot where I attached it. I put e-liquid on a Band-Aid strip and slept with it on. Nothing. Failed experiment.

I've also diluted nasal spray to the exact level used by Big Pharma in its quit-smoking nasal spray. Dr. Loi said he'd already tried that, with extreme nasal irritation, but I foolishly didn't listen. So I blasted myself with twin squirts of nicotine liquid in each nostril. Burned like hell! I thought I'd never be okay. Failed experiment.

There have been others, including nicotine hard candy I cooked up with 4mg per piece (doesn't taste very good even in candy dissolved in the mouth), and nicotine milk shakes (the lower intestine is not a good place to obtain nicotine, although it does its best).

Anyhow, don't sweat a little nic liquid on your hands. Just wash it off and carry on.

P.S. Snus, Stonewall dissolvable tobacco and nasal snuff are all vastly superior, and safer, alternatives to getting nic without smoke or vapor. Now .. I wonder .. if I sprayed a mist of e-liquid on my pipe tobacco and then smoked it ...

 

[Bertrand]

Now .. I wonder .. if I sprayed a mist of e-liquid on my pipe tobacco and then smoked it ...

I tried this with a cigarette when I ran out of atomizers. Don't do it.

 

[TropicalBob]

I want a higher nicotine level from the pipe tobacco. What was the problem?

 

[Bertrand]

Taste, so ymmv.

 

[taz3cat]

RX's at one time could and did make lollypops out of sugar etc and nicotine, but they got banned. I ordered 5 just before they got banned, they tasted ok, help some.

 

[TropicalBob]

Yeh, this was written about a few months ago, and the candy wasn't bad ... I just had trouble getting the e-liquid thoroughly mixed in. It pooled. And when the melt in the mouth hit a pool, it was kind of bitter. I ended up melting Coffee Nips in a candy tin, then mixing in the liquid and freezing the Nips to harden the mix immediately. Too much work. I'd rather vape.

As for pipe tobacco ... it already has propylene glycol in it to keep humidity at 70%. PG is a humectant, and you'll even find some in cigarette tobacco. I've actually tested some on pipe tobacco, but don't think I used enough. I use a homemade mix of e-liquid, glycerine and Kahlua liquor. Not sure what it will do to the PH, however. Pipe tobacco is alkaline, for mouth absorption. E-liquid is slightly acidic, like cigarettes, for lung absorption. So I don't want to tilt the alkaline side too much toward acidic, because I don't inhale pipe tobacco.

 

[Kate]

This is what Dr Loi said about the pH of vapour:

"...my litmus test shows it to be alkaline in nature with reading from pH 7.8 to 8.5...highest found in E-liquids from E-cig and lowest from Ruyan cart samples..."

http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/nicotine/2801-questions-about-nicotine-2.html#post48477

 

[TropicalBob]

Those are the only figures of his I've ever puzzled over.

I won't believe them until I do my own tests. Aklaline e-liquid for lung inhalation makes no sense, unless the goal is "hit" not efficient delivery.

Oh well. I stand corrected if his figures are accurate. That would tilt e-liquid to alkaline. Makes no sense.

 

[Kate]

If alkalinity improves absorption through mucus membrane how would more nicotine be absorbed in inhaled acidic vapour/smoke? Does something change acidity in the lungs?

 

[TropicalBob]

Alkaline smoke is preferred for mouth absorption. Acidic smoke is preferred for lung absorption.

Tobacco makers manipulate PH based on how the product will be used. Generally, pipe tobacco produces alkaline smoke. If you inhale it, it will make you cough terribly as your lungs protest. This cough has nothing to do with nicotine content.

If you puff cigarettes, and just mouth the smoke, you won't absorb much nicotine. You need to suck that stuff in to get the nic impact.

Since most e-liquid vapor is inhaled to the lungs, it makes sense to me to tilt that vapor to the slightly acidic side. Heck, I might try some stuff myself. Maybe I'll dilute some crystals of ascorbic acid in e-liquid and see what happens when I inhale it.

 

[SANJP]

Interesting research Bob

If your alkaline smoke theory works think we may have found the ansa to the great throat hit mystery.

Now to go find some super alkaline Liquid that won't kill me !

 

[Bellinghamster]

Thank you TB and Kate! Sorry for the delay, but that really helped me feel better regarding the transdermal absorption! Your assistance is greatly appreciated!